eBay Live Expands European Footprint, Bringing Live Shopping To France & Italy
eBay is expanding its Live platform into France and Italy, accelerating European livestream strategy as it looks to counter the growing influence of TikTok, Whatnot and other rivals.
eBay Live launched over 3 years ago in the US and has been live for over a year in the UK as well, but eBay has been picking up the pace in the last few months, expanding Live into more categories like Hard Goods, Health and Beauty, and Art and Antiques, and more countries.
After previous launches in Germany in November and Australia in December, Global Launch Leader Stephanie Brausch has announced eBay Live is up and running in France and Italy in a post on LinkedIn.
In addition to new countries, eBay is eager to expand Live to more categories in existing markets, launching the Coins category in Germany on January and looking to hire a US-based Director eBay Live Category Expansion, according to a recent job ad posted on the company's career's page.
And while it does not appear eBay has any plans to run a Super Bowl ad this year, they're taking the opportunity to promote eBay Live with the End Zone pop-up shop and livestream shopping watch parties in partnership with GQ and the city of San Jose.
Side note: eBay has a close connection with current San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who has worked with CEO Jamie Iannone on "shared priorities and continued collaboration."
Mahan, who recently announced he is entering the CA Governor's race, also has close personal ties to ex-eBay Chief Communications Officer Steve Wymer, who was fired for cause for his role in the 2019 stalking scandal - and the big game will be held at the 49er's Levi's Stadium, which has its own connections to eBay.
So why is eBay suddenly expanding Live 3 years after the initial launch? It could be that TikTok's recent foray into auctions (with the help of some ex-eBay talent), and reports that TikTok Shop is within striking distance of overtaking eBay in Gross Merchandise Volume has put eBay on the defensive.
Liz Morton
TikTop Shops auction initiatives are aimed squarely at the high-end collectibles market that eBay had previously dominated (with ex-eBay Collectibles GM Steve Halupka leading the way.)
In Q3 2025, analytics firm EchoTik estimated TikTok Shop sold ~$19 Billion worth of products globally from July through September, with the US accounting for ~$4 Billion to ~$4.5 Billion of that total, an increase of about 125 percent compared to Q2 2025.
By comparison, eBay reported $20.1 Billion total global GMV for the same period, just barely managing to stay ahead of the social media giant despite devoting significant resources and discounts for users to try to boost usage of eBay Live livestream shopping.
And Marketplace Pulse founder, Juozas Kaziukėnas, says new research shows that trend continuing for the full year 2025 financial results.
Meanwhile, WhatNot just reported ~$8 billion in live GMV in 2025, more than doubling year over year, with over 20 million new accounts created on the platform last year alone.
Liz Morton
eBay scrambling to expand Live into more categories and countries now is a stark contrast to their position just a few short months ago at eBay Open 2025, where General Manager eBay Live Caroline Pougnier inexplicably encouraged smaller sellers who were interested in livestreaming to use competing sites to get comfortable with live selling and build an audience.
Liz Morton
During the eBay Open Live Seller Panel titled Thriving in Real-Time Commerce, Pougnier told attendees:
Okay, so the next question is when is eBay live going to be open for more Sellers and more categories? And what's required to be eligible?
So our vision of course is to have eBay live be open to all trusted sellers on the platform. We're really keen on building a platform that has the best sellers who are very trusted because a lot can go wrong if you've got a not great or not very ethical seller.
At the moment though the technology is still in its earliest stages and so we're partnering with those who have existing livestreaming experience so that they can help us build the platform and make it ready for a broader audience. We're going to be opening up little by little as the platform gets more mature.
At the moment in order to join, you should have existing livestreaming experience and/or a very active social media community, in addition, of course to fantastic access to inventory.
Even more mind-blowing, when a small seller in the live audience asked how she could get into live selling if she didn't qualify for eBay Live, Pougnier explicitly told the seller she should start by practicing livestreaming and building an audience on other social media sites - an idea the seller had not previously considered before today!
Seller: my question is related to what you were just talking about. So I am a smaller seller. I am dying to get on to the Live platform and as I was applying I realized that I don't have any of the qualifications that you're looking for.
I have 998 followers on TikTok and a very small Instagram. So, what would you recommend for platforms for us that want to get into this business but cannot quite yet get onto eBay?
Caroline: Yeah. So it sounds like you're already doing the work of building a social media following, have you practiced going live on those platforms?
Seller: I have not and I really didn't think about that.
Caroline: I think that's a really good first step because first of all, you get used to being in front of the camera, moderating an audience, you get used how the chat goes. And also you'll find that you're following will grow much faster as you start live on social media platforms.
eBay has a long history of blundering into telling their customers to spend more time on competitor sites, has raised many questions about whether eBay leadership truly understands the current competitive landscape.
Liz Morton
For example, As @unsuckEBAY so presciently explained in 2021, continuing to funnel users to Facebook for support, engagement and live shopping seemed like a bad move, especially in light of how StockX took a big bite out of eBay's sneaker business in 2019.
Early last year, eBay did in fact make a deal with Meta, announcing a partnership which allows eBay items to be listed on Facebook Marketplace - but it's important to note that the integration directs the buyer from Facebook to eBay to complete the transaction, so in theory it should be a net gain for eBay rather than a risk of losing existing users to a competitor.
Liz Morton
That being said, it was absolutely wild to hear the General Manager of eBay Live actively encouraging sellers who were apparently too small for eBay to care about to go pay their dues (quite literally in the form of selling fees) and hone their live selling skills elsewhere.
If that small seller followed Pougnier's advice and became successful with live selling by growing a sizeable following on Whatnot, TikTok or Instagram, why in the world would she want to come back groveling for a chance to be let into eBay Live?
eBay is now reversing course from that monumentally short-sighted position, recently opening Live up to more sellers and more categories in the US while expanding internationally, but one has to wonder how much potential revenue they foolishly handed to their competitors in the meantime.
Liz Morton
One major early hurdle for eBay Live was persistent technical problems that made the user experience inconsistent and, in some cases, practically unusable - like the Elton John Charity Event that turned into an embarrassing debacle with terrible pixelation, extreme lag and buffering distracting and disrupting the event.
Liz Morton
It seems eBay has finally gotten most of the bugs worked out, but after 3 years of technical bottlenecks and squandered opportunities while smaller, scrappy upstart competitors have gained an early foothold in live selling, is eBay Live too late to the party or arriving just in time?
Let us know what you think in the comments below!
